Geraint Thomas offered his very own definition of sporting courage here in
Corsica when he defied the excruciating pain of a cracked pelvis to cycle
for 145.5km over a fiendishly twisting mountainous course and force himself
to the end of the third stage of the Tour de France.

Good timing: Simon Gerrans dipped just in front of Peter Sagan to take the stage winPhoto: REUTERS

The double Olympic champion’s mum Hilary was doubtless barely able to watch because she wants her boy to pull out following Saturday’s terrible crash near the finish of the opening stage in Bastia.

If she had seen Geraint in agony, trying and failing to force his leg over his bike on Monday morning at the start in Ajaccio, it would only have hardened her belief that he should have quit there and then.

Sorry, mum. After needing assistance to just mount the bike and knowing that an MRI scan had shown up the crack in his hip, Thomas then proceeded to hang on grimly for nearly four hours, mostly at the rear of the peloton while being treated with painkilling spray, before getting off gingerly at the finish and declaring: “I won’t give up.” Sometimes, you were reminded, sport is not about the winner.

In the seaside town of Calvi, a crowd cheered for the Australian stage victor Simon Gerrans after his thrilling sprint triumph over Peter Sagan but nobody made a fuss about the bloke limping home more than nine minutes later. Except his Sky team-mates, that is.

Thomas thought he had been useless to them, unable to shoulder his usual share of donkey work up and down the dramatic red rocks that looked as if they had been transported from a Hollywood western.

Yet his fortitude actually buoyed his team-mates. At the end, Chris Froome, his team leader came over to put an arm around the man who was explaining how the past two days had been the hardest he had ever endured on a bike.

“He’s Welsh. He’ll survive,” smiled Froome, who was left astonished when, at about the 100km mark, Thomas battled briefly to join him nearer the front of the peloton and bellowed “Yeah, c’mon!”.

“That made us all smile,” Froome said. “He’s got fighting spirit. He is in pain but he’s really up for it. That really lifts us.” Astonishingly, Thomas actually improved his overall position from last place to 194th out of 196.

So what chance of seeing him in Paris? “Look, it’s G. One tough Welshman,” an admiring Richie Porte said. “I think he’ll make it all the way.” Yes, G for guts, perhaps something to do with the spirit of Whitchurch High School in Cardiff, which also honed Gareth Bale and Sam Warburton.

Captain Warburton has lost his Lions battle but the man who struck gold on the track for Britain at the past two Olympics battles on.

In Saturday’s crash, he was thrown over the handlebars, torpedoed through the air and landed heavily on his back. He admitted that he was suffering so much the next day that he nearly pulled out after 15km.

“But the experts have said I am not going to do any more damage by ­riding. It’s getting a little better all the time,” he said. “My mum is worried, though. She says there is no point in carrying on, that I can stop. Yet I’ve put so much into this I am not going to give up just yet.”

On Tuesday, with the circus having moved to the mainland following a spectacular Grand Départ in which the big winner must have been the Corsican tourist board, the 2012 team pursuit gold medallist would have been a major influence on the team time trial in Nice.

Because he is such a powerful pursuiter, Thomas would have been worth crucial seconds for Sky, who have realistic ambitions on Tuesday of taking the yellow jersey from Belgium’s Jan Bakelants, who clung on for a second day.

Instead, Thomas accepts, he will play no part in the nine-man team’s effort as they surge on to the Promenade des Anglais. “But I am going to have to do a decent time to get under the time limit. It could end up being an individual time trial for me!”

Then some hard decisions will have to be made. “If after a few days more, the pain’s still there then there’s no point suffering just to finish. I haven’t come here just to do a lap of France.” An eight-man Sky team? It did not stop them last year when Kanstantsin Siutsou broke his leg in the first week.

Meanwhile, Mark Cavendish, dropped on the last of four categorised climbs, fell further behind in the green-jersey race with the new leader Sagan, but the 49‑point deficit could have been worse had the ­Slovak not lost out by less than quarter of a wheel to the 33-year-old Gerrans.

It prompted much joy, and relief, for the Australian Orica GreenEdge team, whose other contribution to this Tour had been to lodge their team bus beneath the finish gantry on Saturday. Last night, they were claiming a win and a half.